


Ignominy in Ransom

by executrix



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caper Fic, Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4702367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Servalan's attempts to obtain Orac are successful. Briefly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ignominy in Ransom

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the zine "Avon the Terrible" (which elviaprose was kind enough to give me). 
> 
> Takes place somewhere in S2, obviously before Pressure Point.
> 
> Like all caper fics, this relies on a LOT of things occurring precisely as planned...

ISABELLA: _Ignominy in ransom and free pardon_  
Are of two houses; lawful mercy  
Is nothing kin to foul redemption. (Measure for Measure Act II, Scene iv, 111-113)

It was with some trepidation that Blake, Cally, and Gan set off for the three-day Hyper-Post-Modern Interplanetary Marxist Congress. Not out of fear of their personal safety; the conference was well-guarded. However, it was evident that, even if the rest of the crew could somehow be persuaded or blackmailed into attending the Congress, someone would have to stay behind on the ship. Blake could only hope that the relevant fable was about absent felines and sportive rodents, not foxes guarding the henhouse.

To nobody’s surprise except perhaps Cally’s, Gan returned to the Liberator directly after the plenary session. Jenna rolled her eyes only a little and brought him a plate of warmed-over paella. (Blake didn’t like prawns, so Avon only made paella when Blake wasn’t around, and anyway he would have complained about the price of saffron.) 

+I could have told you so+ Orac said. 

As they stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, Vila told Avon, “Like you’d need special powers to guess that! I’ve never liked that thing.”

“Doubtless you would have said that about me, when you’d first met me, and look how useful I’ve turned out,” Avon said. 

“Even if I believed that, it’s true that you’re both obnoxious, but you’re always trying to save your own skin which is handy for whoever’s skin is hanging about next to you. Orac keeps dumping us right in it. And then it went and blew up a perfectly good DSV, just to prove a point. I mean, how can you trust someone who’d do that?”

After a good deal of clatter, Avon straightened up from the maw of the dishwasher. “All right,” he said. “Leave it with me.”

ISABELLA: _Sign me a present pardon for my brother,_  
Or with an outstretched throat I’ll tell the world aloud  
What man thou art.

ANGELO: _Who would believe thee, Isabel?_ (Act II, scene iv, 152-155)

Avon made a point of monitoring Federation communications channels, especially the Court Circular, so he could troll Blake about the impracticality of planned missions vis a vis Federation activity. With the necessary information in hand, he stopped off at the Ordnance Room, packed a bag, and glued Orac’s key in place. Then he took one of the Liberator’s shuttles out to ChefRouge, where Servalan was reviewing a new anti-personnel weapon. (Avon wondered precisely what would constitute a pro-personnel weapon, although he was soon to find out.)

Near the secret base, Avon put Orac down in a forest clearing, placed a ring of small mines, set the detonators for ten minutes, and took the shuttle back to the ship. Avon almost wished he’d been there to see it, but, as he surmised, Travis rushed out to scoop up the prize and got knocked on his arse by the explosions. Avon mentioned to Vila how risible he found it that Travis always went and did whatever ridiculous thing Servalan told him to. Vila fell about laughing.

Avon waited a day and clicked on to a very, very secret channel. “Hullo, Servalan. Enjoying your new acquisition?” He was fairly certain that Servalan had not told anyone else about Orac’s miraculous appearance when it occurred, because she would want Orac all to herself. And she certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone about once Orac became an irritating liability, although perhaps her least-favorite Senator might get a surprise birthday present. 

“I rather thought that was you. But, well, I thought it was your overture to come over to my side, and not a vicious act of war, letting that awful little computer drive me spare.”

In the background, Avon could hear Orac intone, +Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.+

“Orac has a point,” Avon said. “If any gods exist, I can’t see them viewing you with any sort of approval.”

“There must be, to explain my meteoric rise,” Servalan said smugly, then returned to her present predicament. “Orac won’t shut up, Avon,” Servalan said. “And it’s so *nasty.*”

“Leave the room,” Avon suggested.

“What’s the point of being the Supreme Commander if I can be chased out of my own office—well, the one I took over from Brigadier Mirvanko--by a rotten little perspex box?”

+Why don’t you let Mirvanko back into his office?+ the Peanut Gallery said. +I have quite a few things to tell him about you. I’m sure he’d love to hear them.+

“Just take a chainsaw to Orac. Or chuck it out the window.” 

“Orac says he’s quite thoroughly booby-trapped for that eventuality. The whole installation would go up like tinder.”

“It would say that, wouldn’t it?”

“But what am I to *do,* Avon?” Servalan whined, forgetting for a moment that she was talking to an enemy.

“You were prepared to pay a hundred million for Orac. I’ll take a modest hundred thousand to solve your problem.”

“And where d’you think I can get that sort of money?”

“Slush fund.”

“Then whatever will I do for slush?” Servalan asked plaintively. It was almost Epinal Fashion Week, and that happened only twice a year. 

“They’ve just audited the Serving Officer’s Orphans’ Benefit Fund,” Avon said. “So they won’t be back for a year.”

Arrangements were made, and once again Avon climbed into the shuttle for the trip to ChefRouge. Servalan handed him a glass of Mirvanko’s best soju, which he poured into a potted plant at the earliest opportunity. Servalan showed Avon the credit disks while Orac fumed. +A mere hundred thousand…+

“I’ll take more, if it’s on offer,” Avon said. “Oh, and speaking of that. A non-monetary aspect of the deal. Amnesty for all of us.”

“Avon, I can’t do that…”

“Of course you can.”

“Well, I won’t, so it doesn’t make any difference.”

“Oh, all right,” Avon said, wondering at himself. “Just Gan, then, he’s hardly Public Enemy Number One, is he?” Sometimes Avon thought that it would be best all around for Gan to just settle down in bucolic obscurity somewhere. Far away from the Liberator.

Servalan nodded, and said, “Just get on with it.”

+Oh? Is there an echo in here?+

Avon took out some cotton swabs and a bottle of nail varnish remover (which he had filled up with a powerful industrial solvent) and carefully removed the adhesive holding the key. He put the key in his jacket pocket. The bottle had been chosen (with some trepidation about the solvent going straight through) because it would infuriate Servalan to think she could have solved the problem herself. 

Of course she never did solve problems, she just threw Travis at them, which usually wreaked more havoc on Travis than on the problems. 

Then Avon shrunk Orac, tucked it under his arm, and held out his other hand for the payment (looking more like a teapot than usual),.

“What a dreadful show-off you are, Avon,” Servalan said. “I didn’t know you could do that.” 

Servalan stuffed the credit chips into Avon’s trouser pocket, which took some doing, simultaneously emitting inquisitive “Hmmm?” purrs. Of course he had considered this possibility. There were far more positions in the Kama Sutra that would require her to turn his back on him than the converse, yet still he demurred. Avon shook his head. “I wouldn’t know whether to book it as a lagniappe or an excise tax,” he said. 

Cautiously, Avon flew the shuttle back to the Liberator, although he didn’t think Servalan knew where he had landed it so she could have someone booby-trap it. Under less fraught circumstances he would have asked Orac for an opinion. No one followed him. 

Orac wittered away the whole trip. +Blake won’t like hearing that you were treatorously traiting with the enemy…I mean…+

“I know what you mean. Well, Orac, Some clairvoyant you turned out to be,” Avon said. “*I* don’t trust your precognition after this little—affaire—but neither would any of the others if you tell them. I’m planning to keep stumm, myself. That’s the best thing for everybody.”

Orac knew what was happening. As the ancient site, rom.com (particularly popular on primitive planets like Cupid-OK and the Boon Sand Mills), was wont to say, Avon was “playing hard to get.” +Sand+ Orac muttered. +I’m going to remember something about that.+

Jenna eyed Avon narrowly. “I just hope you remembered to recharge the shuttle after you didn’t go anywhere in it,” she said. 

Shortly afterward, Vila cornered Avon. “Don’t I get a share of what she gave you? Well, the monetary part, if your nadgers drop off I don’t want any of that.” 

“Amidst your general dullness, how sharper than a serpent’s tooth, Vila,” Avon said. “I solve your problem, and *this* is the thanks I get?” He yawned. “Well, it’s been a long day. I’ll just go have a lie-down.” 

“They’re back!” Gan announced, tannoyingly, just as, in the third cabin away from Avon’s, Vila discovered the carved sandalwood box under the carpeting and floorboards. He eased it open, insulted that it took only two lockpicks. (In addition to the booby trap, the box contained nothing but the small change from Avon’s jacket; the actual credit disks were in the Wardrobe Room, in a box labeled “Long-Line Brassieres, Size XXL.”)

Something inside the box burst and showered him with brilliant rainbow-colored powders. He brushed at his face, looked at the results on his palm, and headed down the corridor toward the shower room. He almost collided with Cally, returning to her cabin to empty her overnight bag into the laundry chute.

“Oh, is it Holi already?” she said. “Vila, I’d no idea you were a Hindu!” 

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” he muttered. 

“Thanks!” Blake told Gan, gratefully accepting a mug of coffee. He’d been up most of the night at the dead-dog panel, followed by an informal discussion of when democratic elections could be introduced to a population that had never known anything except corrupt dictatorship. 

Cally, after a quick change, went to the flight deck, and even more gratefully accepted a coffee. She’d been up most of the night in a productive exchange of views with a Syndicalist who was on the Aldonian national folk-dance team and had an amazing extension. Another virtue was that she was almost certain never to see him again. The Auronar lived by the Sandwich Principle: don’t get your meat where you get your bread.  
Blake sighed. “It’s good to be home,” he said, looking around to see if anyone contradicted him. 

“We’re glad to see you back safe,” Jenna said. 

“Anything exciting happen while we were gone?” Blake said, with a slight touch of menace.

A grave-like silence fell over his confreres, guilty and innocent alike. 

“How was the conference?” Jenna asked with a brittle laugh that would not have been out of place in a Noel Coward revival in weekly rep. 

“Inspiring,” Blake said, putting down his coffee mug and reaching for a couple of biscuits. “There have been some real successes in the Outer Planets, and there were important sessions about linking ideology and practice.”

“’To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities’?” Avon said. “It’s been tried. It didn’t work.”


End file.
